


In Service

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:43:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It turns out, when they said joining Starfleet was a life in service, that was exactly what they meant.</i> Scotty and McCoy, hard at work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Service

The _Enterprise_ is a beautiful, sleek, silver lady of a ship. She's also, as McCoy observes _sotto voce_ at the appropriate moment, really, really fucking big.

Spock gives him a look - a severe, expressionless look, which is somehow different from ordinary expressionless or thoughtful expressionless or, heavens forfend, looking-at-Uhura expressionless - and says, "Doctor, your use of idiom is disproportionate, but perhaps accurate."

"Wait," McCoy said, quickly, "when I said, I didn't _mean_..."

James T. Kirk, Captain, looks at him with his captainly expression firmly glued on to that damned baby face, and says, "Bones, I have to agree with Spock this time, I'm sorry. Report to the cargo bay in one hour."

McCoy says, "Yes, sir," as insubordinately as humanly possible, and that, apparently, is that. Back in sickbay, he packs depressants, stimulants, analgesia and every hallucinogen known to humanity (and then some), while Kirk lingers in the doorway and makes helpful comments.

"Be sure to check in every twelve hours."

"Yes, Captain."

"Don't let Scotty practice his trans-warp beaming, I made him promise he wouldn't without emergency teams standing by."

"Yes, Captain."

"Don't drink too much."

"No, Captain."

"Bones, stop it."

McCoy glares. "When I get back. Two weeks' paid shore leave on Risa?"

"For the entire ship," Kirk promises, rashly. "We'll go to that place you like. The one with the pink-haired girls. And I'll buy you all the sour mash in the Alpha Quadrant to go with them. Really, Bones, do other captains have to _bribe_ their officers to follow orders?"

"Probably not," McCoy says, snaps the case on his last vials and turns to him with a glare. "Right, that's it. Anything else I need?"

"Good luck, Bones," and Kirk gives him a manly slap on the shoulder, a big sincere grin, and there's a reason he got to be captain at twenty-five, now, isn't there. McCoy stomps off to the cargo bay, and considers morosely that he probably wouldn't do it for anyone else.

It turns out, he's thinking as the shuttle clears the bay, that when they said joining Starfleet was a life in service, that was _exactly_ what they meant.

*

Two weeks later, here they are, and surprisingly enough, McCoy is enjoying it more than he thought he would. Spock's amazing plan of incredible logic meant that the _Enterprise_ itself didn't have to go on expansive, energy-wasting supply runs. For a couple of months, McCoy and Scotty zip between systems in their little runabout - its official name is, well, a number, with "NCC-1701" in it somewhere, but they've got to calling it Jemima, after Scotty's ol' mum and McCoy's ex-girlfriend but three - and they skip through one far-flung Federation colony after another, Scotty fixes the only replicator and then McCoy uses it to replicate enough vaccine for everyone in the place, then they spend a couple of hours in the local equivalent of the bar and they're off again by morning. They work, and the system works, and McCoy likes the simple rhythms of it: good honest work was something _his_ ol' mum used to talk about, but sometimes it beats mortal peril all the live-long day. Sometimes it's good to just get stuff done.

In orbit around Sigma Eridani V, a planet of solemnly beautiful felinoid people with a tendency to bad language, Scotty and McCoy return to _Jemima_ to find a message waiting. It is a set of nearby coordinates and three words: "Drop your shields."

"Might as well drop our goddamn pants," McCoy grouses. "Trap if ever I saw one."

But some tinkering proves beyond no shadow of a doubt that the signal originated from the _Enterprise_ bridge, or so Scotty says, and now McCoy comes to think of it, it'd be ham-fisted even for a brace of attacking Klingons or whatever the nearest enemy is to this sector of space. So off they go, breaking orbit, and for a brief moment the _Enterprise_ glimmers on the most far-reaching of their long-range sensors, disappears into warp. Something else shimmers on the pad.

"Pavel Andreievich Chekhov," says Scotty thoughtfully, picking up the bottle of amber liquid with the red bow tied around the neck, "you're a good man and no mistake."

Their schedule for the next fortnight has also suddenly taken up residence in their data banks, but it starts in the morning. They return to a safe distance from the planet's surface and get out the tumblers, while the terminator marking twilight slips slowly across the planet below them. Starfleet, and the niceties of regulation, seem a long way away, as though they happened to someone else, someone whose ex-wife maybe didn't take an entire planet in the divorce, and McCoy thinks, blurrily, through the haze, that he can live with that, for a while.

"To us!" he proposes, at length, when they've progressed through the first few fingers and the lifting curve of space beyond the shuttle's windows is growing deceptively gold-tinted.

"To the _Enterprise_!" Scotty counters. "And to all who sail in her."

"To Earth, and all who sail in _her_."

"To the lovely people of Sigma Eridani V! May their tails grow never less bushy." Scotty looks thoughtfully at the level in the glass. "Speaking of Earth, and all of that..."

"Earth," McCoy repeats. "Ah, Earth."

"Aye, speaking of. We're gettin' to be mates, right?"

"Yeah," McCoy says, "yeah, we are" – because, as he thinks about it, that's true. And for a man who usually makes friends by threatening to vomit on them, it's a quiet and nice kind of revelation.

Scotty grins. "Then tell me about that ex-wife of yours."

"Why?" McCoy says sharply; he doesn't really suspect that Scotty wants gossip, but he's never been an easy man to deal with, about anything, and he's not so much touchy on the topic as prickly in every layer of his skin.

"Because," Scotty says, "because you talk about her all the time when you're not talkin' about her, and this here's a small space. Not enough room for three."

"I don't," McCoy says, because sure, he talks about her, but only to Jim Kirk and only when the nights are grown dark and amber. But this isn't the time and place to say this isn't the time and place; they're here, and the bottle is here, and Sol is flickering as one of a thousand other stars through the prismatic layers of glass. He thinks about it for a moment. Even if she did take the whole planet in the divorce, and yeah, there's a gem of truth in that, she left him the rest of the universe, its scope and sparkling wonders, and that seems a fair trade, somehow.

But... there's Joanna.

"Your little one," Scotty says, smiling.

"Not so little." McCoy adds petulantly, "She said she had a boyfriend before I left, you know. She's _twelve_. I had my shotgun all picked out."

Scotty laughs. "You should bring her on board when we're next home. Kids that age, they love starships, and she'll forget all about the lad."

"She takes after her mother," McCoy says, thoughtfully.

"Oh," Scotty says. "She's pretty."

"Yeah," McCoy says, and doesn't say anything else about that. "You got a girlfriend back home, Scotty? Other than the goddamned _Enterprise_?"

"I always cheated on 'em with my engines," Scotty says, and slips down so he's looking straight up through the glass and into space. "Spock, you know, he's a lucky man."

"Bastard," says McCoy, succinct, and that's all there is to that. He looks at Scotty all boneless and brown-eyed beneath the gleaming stars, but there's drunk and there's drunk. Mostly, there's drunk and there's the light of morning below and stars above, and a feeling like something, with new life, new civilisations and hard work, is getting easier.

*

"This is not my idea of fun," Scotty says, blurrily through his respirator.

"Shut up," McCoy hisses, "and keep swimming, goddamn you."

"Are you quite well, Doctor McCoy?" inquires 1723-78a in its silvery voice. It waves a delicate translucent tentacle in his general direction, a gesture he interprets as concern. "We can stop and rest if you would so desire."

"That's quite all right," he manages, through the layers of charcoal; the smell of ammonia is pretty apparent, even despite the filtration. "I think we'd better not stop until we reach the base."

"Very well," it sings, and flutters on below them.

McCoy wonders if this is what it feels like to be a tin can. Scotty, who despite all outside appearances has been in Starfleet for enough years to treat ammonia-breathing swimming creatures as par for the course, at least has had some experience of life in a full-body metal suit. "Do ye want to corrode?" he'd said, sounding more thickly Scots with each vowel. "Do ye want your internal organs tae turn into liquefacted _goo_?"

McCoy said no, no, actually he didn't want to go to Luyten Half Second 1723 at all, and stay safe on the shuttlecraft where the atmosphere was twenty-one percent oxygen and Terran standard, but Spock's orders had been very precise.

1723-78a, mercifully, ignores his inner turmoil, and after an interminable five minutes, they're hitting the sea floor, where Scotty and McCoy can at least walk along the rocky surface with the 1723 swimming slowly beside. "Your assistance is very much appreciated," it says, cheerfully. "We are, alas, not a particularly exogamous race, so it is a great treat to receive visitors."

McCoy thinks, privately, that it's perhaps because there aren't many other Federation environments in which the 1723, with their very specific requirements – liquid ammonia and lots of it – can be well served. Their equivalent of a chief engineer, who has a gold circlet around its leftmost tentacle to indicate its status, is delighted to meet the famed Montgomery Scott – "1723-778!" he says, delighted, "you wrote to me about one of my papers!" – and while there is an absence of vaccines to deliver, this being quite some distance beyond McCoy's mastery of xenobiology, he nevertheless takes the opportunity to lurk in the seafloor cave that holds their local medical facility.

"Doctor McCoy, delighted to make your acquaintance!" – and McCoy suddenly warms to the thought that this is a planet where, at least, everyone is pleased to see them.

"You're 1723-67g?" he asks tentatively, and it nods happily.

"Come in, come in, please don't mind the mess," it says. "Your friend will be some time yet, I happen to know 778 will quiz him on every detail of his new theory of trans-warp beaming."

"I was supposed to stop him pinning people down and telling them about that," McCoy says, and it laughs.

"In the meantime, I wish to discuss what new developments have been made in medical advancements in pressure change in spacefaring races," it says, thoughtfully. "You will understand, of course, that changes in internal pressure may be fatal to us. We lack your" – it touches McCoy's arm with a gentle tentacle – "impermeable membranes."

"This is an artificial metal casing," McCoy starts, but it waves him away.

"Yes, yes. But I am given to believe that your – ah, skin, is it? – is in itself impermeable to liquid. I had a sample brought out to study, but alas, it degraded very quickly in this environment."

"67-g," McCoy says, "I will personally beam my toenail clippings down here if it will help your research."

"Keratin?" It looks quizzical. "Why, yes, that would be a great help, thank you."

McCoy, who hadn't actually meant it, grins to himself and makes a mental note. The rest of the time passes quickly in discussion of cross-species deep-space stressors, and by the time he and Scotty have beamed back to the shuttlecraft, some hours later, McCoy is thinking it's a great shame that more Federation worlds can't make liquid ammonia provision without major structural alteration. It would certainly liven up diplomatic cocktail parties on the _Enterprise_.

"Tell me something," Scotty says, sorting out a package of data padds and old-fashioned papers to laminate and beam down to the planet's surface. "Why the numbers?"

"They're the only sentient species on the planet," McCoy explains, "and they didn't quite understand the concept of demonyms when first contact was made. And the universal translator made its usual hash of things, and there we are. They understand now, of course, but I think they just find the whole thing amusing."

"Aha," says Scotty, and finishes up his package. He does it with great care, tucking in the ends of the wrapping with deft fingers.

"For 1723-788?" McCoy asks, and is rewarded by a blush. The little box beams down with a twinkle, and he reflects that he probably shouldn't throw stones; no one before now, after all, has ever said such nice things about his impermeable membranes.

*

After a week or so, they return to the rendezvous point to be met by a single subspace beacon, disconsolately wailing, and a buoy transmitting a data packet in great spluttering sprays all around. "Someone wanted us to get the message," Scotty notes, and beams the whole affair aboard, where it sits and looks squatly metallic at them amidst the crates of ball bearings.

"Dear Mr. Scott and Doctor McCoy," McCoy reads, as data begins to scroll up the screens. "Today I was boring and logical, had the entire crew work on their calisthenics and in my free time I improved the efficiency of the _Enterprise_ by nought point five six eight percent."

Scotty gives him a look.

"Oh, fine, have it your way. _For the attention of Mr. Scott and Doctor McCoy. The Enterprise is en route to the Procyon system, four parsecs distant, answering a distress call. You will find enclosed our current heading and approximate time of return. In the meantime, you are requested to proceed to the Tau Ceti system, there to make contact with the Federation outpost on the third planet. You will offer help and assistance as required. The captain has asked me to convey his regards, and mentions particularly that the ship lacks a certain camaraderie in your absence. He may not be unique in his opinion. Spock out._" McCoy grins. "Oh, Spock, you old romantic, you. Onwards and upwards."

Tau Ceti III turns out to be not so much an outpost as a small Federation melting-pot – the colonists are a varied mix of settlers from an enormous variety of planets, and their central government reminds Scotty, or so he says, of the parish councils they used to have back home. The place has the usual problems of distant worlds with not much in the way of through traffic: things broken down for want of a single part, little kids waiting for transplant organs. What they do have, however, is a bar serving a number of creatively psychedelic cocktails, and after weeks on the job, it's a blessed relief to sit down on revolving barstools and just get on with it.

The company turns out to be pretty good, too. Scotty watches with a twinkle in his eye and a knowing expression to go with it, but McCoy doesn't care, because the very nice young woman who wants to make his acquaintance is, well, very nice. Very nice indeed. She's not quite human – has a bit of Betazoid and a bit of a few other things he remembers vaguely as footnotes from xenobiology class back at the Academy – and she has enormous liquid eyes with long purple-tipped lashes that kind of remind McCoy of the cat-like creatures on Sigma, up until they stop reminding him of anything because he can't think any more because one delicate hand – paw? – is wrapped around his and is leading him gently out of the bar.

"I'll be seeing you in the morning, I've no doubt," Scotty murmurs.

"Count on it," McCoy says, blurrily, and follows the scent of perfume out into the dark.

When he wakes up, it's dark. He's naked, he's cold, and he's alone. Jerking upright, he bangs his shoulder on something hard, flails outwards with both hands and smacks into hard surfaces on both sides. Panicking, he tries to stand up, hits his head on something hard enough to see stars, and howls in pain.

Dimly, he's aware of the sound of muffled shouting, and suddenly there's a burst of light that hurts his eyes. He whimpers slightly, and then someone – some blessed someone – reaches in, puts their arms under his shoulders and pulls him out.

"Jesus," Scotty breathes, and lowers him to the floor. "What in the name of all that's holy happened to you, lad?"

"Why," says McCoy, very slowly, willing his voice not to crack, "was I in a box?"

Scotty looks very much like he's trying not to laugh. "I signed for you."

"What?"

"The box was couriered over this morning, early, sender unknown. I was waiting for you to turn up before I opened it." Scotty gives up and grins broadly. "That woman… I guess she thought it was the best way of getting you home."

"I could've walked!" McCoy snaps, furiously. "I paid attention to the route just so I could reverse it in the morning!"

"If I'd known you were in there..." – and now Scotty's cackling. "I guess it's a tradition on this planet? There were air-holes and whatnot."

McCoy stands up, stretches, and feels the corners of his mouth beginning to twitch. "Last night... you'd have done the same."

"I have no doubt about that, yes." Scotty grins. "Such pretty eyes as that girl had."

"Other bits of her were pretty, too," McCoy says, frankly. "I thought..."

"I'm sure she thought you were pretty too, man."

McCoy glares at him and turns around. He isn't ordinarily much of a one for public nudity, and he thinks the time has come to address this fact. The shuttle's living quarters are unfortunately too small for him to escape Scotty, who follows along to provide commentary as he gets dressed. "It's not that bad, you know," he says, sitting on his chair backwards as McCoy rummages for clothes. "Worse things happen in space."

"What," McCoy mutters, "could possibly be worse than being mailed home in a box?"

Scotty raises his eyebrows. "When I was sent out to Delta Vega they did a psych profile on me and said, lad, you'll probably go a wee bit mad out there on your own, we're willing to send someone with you. Here's the people who've pissed us off recently, you pick us one. And there I was, with a stack of paper a hundred feet high and all I was thinking was, well, no Vulcans, no one who's going to tell me I'm being illogical when I sit around and get smashed a lot, and no one who did better'n me at the Academy, and no Hibs supporters. And that still left about ninety-five feet. So I picked one up, and it said, distinguishing features, green skin, and well, I knew someone with green skin at the Academy, knew her pretty well in fact, and it wasn't her but I figured she must have friends 'n' relations, and… well, you know the rest." He snorts. "My first morning at the station, he'd stuck a ball of fluff on my nose overnight to stop it freezin' and fallin' off. I tell you, the course of true love..."

McCoy laughs, finishes getting dressed, and turns his attention to dismantling the box. As well as air-holes, there's a Starfleet uniform, neatly folded, a single crushed flower, and a note thanking Doctor McCoy for a lovely evening.

"What'd I tell you," Scotty says. "Downright lovely tradition, that. Would've saved me a bunch in taxi fares back in Aberdeen. Anyway, she liked you."

McCoy smiles. "Yeah, she liked me."

Scotty grins. "Well, then, guess we can live with that."

*

It's when they have to go back to Delta Vega that Scotty balks. "It's perfectly understandable," McCoy says, with the slight smirk meant to indicate he's building up to something good, some delicate feat of sarcasm originally designed to make Spock crack an expression, "that you're having doubts. I mean, I'm sure it's emotionally triggering for you, all that ice, all that snow, that long, long period of time in your life where you had no pride, no hope, no Scotch. If I were you I'd be positively agoraphobic. I could certify you unfit for duty."

"You do that and you're lugging four crates of ball bearings across the station all your own self," Scotty tells him. "And she's a good shuttle but she can't fly in through the bathroom windows."

"We'll transport it all in," McCoy snaps. "Or does this piece of junk lack even that basic capability?"

Scotty gives him a pained look. "Look, you can say your rude things about _me_, but this wee ship on which I have sweated, and toiled..."

"All right!" McCoy says, quickly. "We're in, we're out, you don't tell me about your itty bitty bairns and I don't slam a few cc's of barbiturate into your neck."

The problem, though, is that Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the Federation starship _Enterprise_ and, McCoy notes, grown man, is afraid of ghosts.

"You weren't there," Scotty insists as they retreat to the cramped cargo bay, hauling on gloves and hats and the special silly Starfleet-issue thermal socks which, McCoy is aghast to discover, have tiny little insignia embroidered on the ankle. "Months I was there, all alone, nothing to do but watch my breath mist and fantasise about sandwiches."

"Firstly," McCoy says, "you weren't alone. Secondly, if I were stuck on an ice planet on my own for months my fantasies would be a darn sight more warming than sandwiches, if you get my meaning."

"Aye," Scotty mutters darkly. "There was that, an' all. But the ice, man! It creaks at night, makes these great cracking noises that'd drive you half mad if you were even a bit that way inclined. And yon green bean was no help _at all_. Used to drop off to sleep somewhere inconvenient and dream of peaches and cream."

"Not a bad strategy at all," McCoy says, approvingly. "Right. Two to beam down, and may the good Lord have mercy on our souls."

Scotty is still glaring as they rematerialise into the dark of the station, and are swiftly followed by the crate upon crate of - well, McCoy decides they are probably not _all_ ball bearings, and after the buzzing stops, the silence echoes through the pipes and chambers. McCoy shivers; the cold is a palpable presence, lurking somewhere beyond this edifice of boilers. In the distance, he hears the humming of enormous machinery.

"No one here yet," Scotty says, briskly, and rubs his hands together in their fingerless gloves. "Seeing as how I left in something of a hurry, it's taking them a while find someone who's been enough of a bad boy or girl or androgynous being. We're just supposed to leave the stuff with a note."

He's already opening up the crates and moving to access the station's central computer, but McCoy lingers, feeling the cold working its way into his bones. Something creaks. McCoy can't help it – he jumps half a foot in the air, and Scotty barks a laugh. "You see," he says. "I had the heebie-jeebies the first couple of months I was here. Wasn't anyone here to meet me, y'see. Just came down one night, had to get settled in, find a bunk, only Keenser for company. There was supposed to be another... well, he wasn't here, anyway."

"What do you want doing with all these" – McCoy squints into the box – "plasticky whirly things?"

"Plasticky whirly – oh, give 'em here." Scotty starts taking them out and putting them in businesslike stacks by the main computer interface. McCoy's still finding it hard to get moving, as though he has a higher activation energy in the cold. After a moment, he leans down and carefully opens the box containing the emergency medical supplies. Hyposprays, antidotes to half a dozen common poisons, some dressings, some packets of electrolytes, all neatly labelled and put away.

"And after a while they got in touch, Starfleet, I mean," Scotty goes on. "Said they were very sorry, they knew I'd been told I was going to be met by this engineer chap, said he was unavoidably detained, wouldn't specify exactly how.

"And it was funny, because before they said that I hadn't been exactly sure that he hadn't been here all along. Keenser can be a right compulsive pain in the arse when he wants to be, but he's a wee snip of a thing, there's only so much he can lift. And it was funny, the sorts of things that weren't where I'd left them when I came back. Enormous great warp core components, for one thing. And then I used to find my draft styluses all sharpened and put in a neat row. Might've been Keenser, might not."

"Don't tell me," McCoy says, witheringly, "you immediately concluded you were being haunted by the ghost of a dead Vulcan engineer."

"Oh, he wasn't dead," Scotty says. "The Vulcans said he wasn't. Said they'd know, or at least his bondmate or whatever you call it – his young lady, anyway, she would know. He just... wasn't here any more."

"But – he was a Vulcan?" McCoy asks, and suddenly shivers; the station has been running limited life support for months, and there are ice crystals forming on inside surfaces.

"Oh, yes. And then I thought – that would make sense, wouldn't it? They have this ritual on Vulcan – well, they did have. It's a thing where they take the soul out of the body and keep it preserved forever in their great hall. Sort of like Valhalla from old Earth, only they really do it, it's not just tales. You don't live forever, but you don't really die."

"It would be cold here," McCoy says. "For a Vulcan, I mean." He hasn't stopped shivering; there are layers and layers of cloth and air and the whole station around him protecting him from the cold, but it's insidious, crippling. He thinks about where he comes from, the warm air and water of the South, and then about blazing desert heat. He imagines roaming snow and ice forever, waiting desperately, desperately, to be warm.

"Cold enough for anyone," Scotty says decisively, starting on the next crate. "And the night gets at you, here. I used to think Aberdeen after dark was bad. The way the wind howls in the hatches, sometimes it sounds like my grandma when she's had a few and sometimes it sounds like... well, voices. "

"Voices," McCoy repeats, less witheringly than before. The lights blink on the computer panels.

"No one ever came here because they wanted to be here," Scotty says, seriously. "No one has ever been happy here, people haven't laughed overly much. That's not a good cast to put on a place. You done with your potions and such?"

"Nearly," McCoy says, letting that go. The next person assigned here won't be alone; Starfleet suspects that the climate of Delta Vega may be altering slightly in response to planetary upheaval, and there may be a whole team of meteorologists and seismologists assigned here for a time to keep an eye on things. If "planetary upheaval" is the right way to describe an entire world destroyed, and McCoy suspects it isn't. He tries to picture what Vulcan must have looked like from here, a beautiful red disc boiling into nothingness, and more to the point, what it felt like: Vulcans, all over the quadrant, telepathically linked in some way to their entire race, feeling their pain, and horror and loss – stop.

"Then we're all finished." Scotty pauses to sit on the only chair and swing backwards around on it to face the computer. "I'll just tap out something for the next poor guys, whoever they are. Inventory enclosed, wish them all well, the toilet in the back corridor only flushes if you jiggle the handle. Anything else?"

"May the good Lord have mercy on their souls?" McCoy suggests, blandly.

Scotty taps something else in, lets the computer register it and stands up, satisfied. "Done. Time to beam out."

"No argument here." They pick up their own tools, leaving behind the empty crates – they'll probably come in useful for storage – and make their way to the station's own pad, a little way aft the corridor.

"I must drop ol' Selek a line to say we've been back to the old place," Scotty says thoughtfully, "he'll be pleased to know I made it out alive" – and they dematerialise.

"Who?" McCoy demands, the moment he can talk again.

"Selek?" Scotty says. "Oh, Vulcan engineer chap, turned up on Risa six months ago a little the worse for wear and with a number of lady friends in tow. Seems even Vulcans can have a wee mid-life crisis if they're driven to it."

McCoy says nothing at all whatever, and the little shuttle breaks orbit with scarcely a creak or howl.

*

The planet below them is deep rust-red, reminds McCoy of Mars and something else he can't put his finger on, something about the red like fire, something about how even from orbit he can see the dust rising in waves and storms across the baked dry land. M-class, just, with a little fresh water in precious reservoirs below the surface, planetary designation 107 Piscium II, small polar caps, some salt oceans, no name.

Scotty seems to understand something before the view screen splutters into life; McCoy sees the shape of the expression forming on his face seconds before a smooth, expressionless image appears, and a voice says, "Doctor McCoy, Chief Engineer Scott, the Vulcan High Council bids you welcome."

"Thank you," McCoy manages. "Thank you. We'll – we'll beam down immediately, sir."

In the absolute quiet he slams his fist into the control panel and says, "Oh."

Scotty says nothing, but he still has that look on his face, the dark of space shadowing his eyes. In silence, they gather together their supplies and prepare for transport.

Later, McCoy understands why they weren't told in advance. Without time to think about what they're getting into, they can take deep breaths and roll up their sleeves and get on with the hard, backbreaking work, for longer days and in higher gravity than they're used to. There were ten thousand survivors, but nothing else – no herds, no pickaxes, no hyposprays, no awnings to keep off the blazing heat. McCoy dispenses the ubiquitous vaccines, and tends to scratches, sprains, minor illnesses, as Scotty goes out every day in the hot sun and patiently solders together solar panel arrays and old-fashioned series circuits. There are few able-bodied Vulcans left; although they live to a great age, it has been centuries since the hard graft of manual labour was necessary, every day, from dawn to twilight so that there may be food, and energy, and a home. McCoy deals with overstrained, wrenched muscles and thinks that the Federation could have sent a half-dozen terraforming ships and transformed this world in hours, but the Vulcan way is to mark out their own land, shape their own space in what is left of their universe.

Wounds heal. The power comes on, dwelling by dwelling, but the small settlements are called by nothing, become nothing. The planet bears its Human name. The airlessness is not just the baking heat and the slightly lower oxygen concentration; there is a silence here beyond that which comes from desert. One morning when he's scrubbing up for the day, a Vulcan healer brushes her hand on McCoy's by mistake, and he notes dispassionately that he screams reflexively into the water, coming out open-mouthed and unclean, the noise dying away in the quiet of his head. He excuses himself and leans against the outside of the building, feeling the dust accumulate in his lungs.

Scotty, who says very little these days, comes back late, looks at empty bottles and asks no questions, but touches McCoy lightly on the shoulder before bunking down for the night.

Spock visits them late one afternoon, when McCoy is fitfully sleeping off a night shift and Scotty is due to return any moment from a day's fitting of power couplings, and says, "Doctor McCoy."

In another place, McCoy would be fascinated by the age and gravity of this man, the ways in which he is and is not Spock, but he's tired, deep in his bones, and he has only an hour to rest before his next shift and he's fairly sure he's lost his boots. "You got him. Sorry I'm not exactly presentable."

"Your appearance is of no consequence. Doctor, we are forever in your debt for your assistance here, and now it is time you leave us."

"What?" McCoy sits up and rubs at his eyes. "Look, we're doing a good job, and you need us. Ten thousand of you, and what, seven, eight healers? Maybe fifty engineers, all told? You need to work on your demographics, there."

"It is a mere matter of assiduous study." Spock almost smiles.

"Yes, but." McCoy is suddenly feeling angry. "Look, I was psi tested at the Academy, so was Scott, it's standard practice. We're neither of us anything to speak of – not worth the training."

"Very few humans are."

"Well, then." McCoy is satisfied. "Then you do need us. You need people who can work without – without it all being so bad," he finishes, suddenly honest.

"There is something in what you say." Spock looks at him. "I will make a note of your observations for the High Council."

McCoy blinks. "Okay, you're _not_ the Spock I know."

Spock gets even closer to smiling. "There is something in what you say, Doctor, and I will advise the High Council of the need and benefit of allowing willing outsiders in, if only for a time. But if you stay longer, you will give us more than we have any right to ask."

McCoy spreads his hands. "I hate to get all old-fashioned on you, but there are things I have to do first. Before anything Starfleet asks me, there are other things."

Spock raises his eyebrows. "The oaths of your craft, Doctor, are not unknown to us."

"Then you understand." McCoy is standing up straight, for the first time in weeks; there's something here he's only dimly aware of, something like strength.

"Yes." Spock stands still, looks around at the two dishevelled bunks, the strewn clothing, the empty bottles, takes it in with large, still eyes. "First, do no harm."

Off McCoy's look, he adds, "I _was_ worth the training, as you say."

McCoy sighs. "And for another thing, there's another version of you who probably wishes I'd stay off his nice tidy ship forever. He keeps telling me not to be so" – he wrinkles his nose – "_illogical_. Even when I say quite reasonable things."

"He is young yet, and unwise in what is good for him."

McCoy grins, stands up and stretches the creaks out of his aching muscles. "Peace and long life, Mr. Spock."

"And you, my old friend."

Something breathes and eases, that long afternoon. Spock takes his leave, walking slowly, and McCoy watches him disappear, footprints blurring into the sand and into the settling mirage of the desert. He's thinking quietly about weights on shoulders when Scotty arrives, out of breath and covered in acrid dust. "You didn't psi test at zero, did you?" McCoy asks him, without preamble.

Scotty looks confused. "Thought humans didn't. I got about a hundred, a hundred and three. Not enough to cheat at cards."

"Right," McCoy says, and breathes deep and easy.

Scotty smiles. "We're going home."

*

The _Enterprise_ is on course to Risa, warp seven. On the observation deck, Kirk takes a sip from his glass and says, "We missed you."

"Really," McCoy says evenly, taking a much bigger sip from his.

"Well… I missed you. Doctor M'Benga definitely missed you, he had to cope with an epidemic of Tellarite flu all by himself. Nurse Chapel helped, though. Spock – was much the same as ever."

"That figures." McCoy leans against the curve of the glass, dimly aware of the vacuum of space a few inches from his back. "Well, you get a report in the morning."

"I'm sorry," Kirk says after a while. "You weren't supposed to be sent to Vulcan on your own. The Enterprise was posted there, all of us. We weren't meant to be pulled off course."

"Distress call." McCoy shrugs. "You had to go. From what I heard, the entire crew is in need of shore leave round about now, not just me and Scotty." He pauses. "Oh, and it's not Vulcan. I don't know what it is, right now, but it's not Vulcan."

"Vulcan is gone," says another voice, even as McCoy's. "You are correct, Doctor. The world my people are building will be something new, not a replacement for something lost."

"You should see it, Spock," McCoy says, tiredly. "It's worth seeing, at least."

"First, we rest. Then we build again." Spock's eyes are dark and impassive.

"Rest," McCoy agrees. "Speaking of that, it's becoming a pressing need. The report really isn't due until the morning."

"A mere formality, I am sure," Spock says suddenly. "From what I understand, you successfully delivered vital supplies to Sigma Eridani V and Tau Ceti III, assisted greatly in scientific research in the Luyten Half Second 1723 system, laid in medical stores on Delta Vega, and made yourselves indispensable to the continuing development of the colony world of 107 Piscium."

"Yep," McCoy says. "Pickled, deep frozen, half-drowned, wrung out, wound up and _couriered_." Kirk looks quizzical, and McCoy adds, "Really, I'll tell you about it over a drink sometime. Maybe in that very nice bar with the very nice girls with the..."

"...very nice pink hair, I know." Kirk grins. "Goodnight, Bones. See you in the morning."

When he's gone, McCoy looks at the stars in the warp field flashing past, and their reflections in Spock's gaze. Somehow, McCoy has stopped thinking of him as expressionless; his repertoire is limited, sure, but Spock can do pensive with the best of them. "As to the last, Mr. Spock," he says. "We went there to serve."

"Your service honours us." Spock nods. "Goodnight, Doctor McCoy."

McCoy watches him go, silent as a cat, and turns back to watching the stars flicker past. At length, he pays a small visit to one of the commissary synthesisers, and wanders through the echoing corridors of the Enterprise, passing members of the skeleton crew who are on shift, and hits a door chime.

"Aye, come in," calls the voice from within, and McCoy enters, balancing the dish carefully on one arm.

"Brought you a present," he says, and whips off the tureen.

"You're a saint, Doctor." Scotty tucks into roast beef sandwiches with mustard, and McCoy sits on the edge of the bed, swinging his feet, and even if he falls asleep pretty soon, things won't be that bad.


End file.
